Orpheus

4

"Remind me again, why are we called the Orpheus?" Pratham asked. "Like, why are these names always Greek or Latin in origin?"

Riley couldn't help but give a small smile; whilst Owen was the goofiest of them all and Connor the most serious, Pratham sat comfortably somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.

"Do you read Plato?" Olivia asked from her seated position. They were waiting in a conference room of sorts, for some of the pre-requisite procedures to finish before they went ahead and suited themselves. Riley, Olivia, and Pratham were seated in the seats surrounding the long white table in the center of the room, while Owen and Elise stood close by. Connor leaned by the window further away from them, watching their Destiny stick out the horizon in all its metallic glory.

"Nah, he just read all the yoga books..." Owen said with a smirk

"Racist much?" Elise quipped.

"Um, I did actually..." Pratham replied, his brown forehead scrunching.

"The yoga books?!" Owen feigned genuine shock.

"Some of Plato's works..." Pratham's forehead scrunched in irritation.

"And you don't remember?" Olivia asked softly, her dark locks seemingly swimming in the air.

"Look, I read it for fun, okay?"

"HOLY SHIT MAN," Owen screamed. "WHO THE FUCK READS PLATO FOR FUN?!"

The entire room lit up in a chuckle. Granted it had only the six of them, but still, Riley enjoyed seeing even Connor give a grin.

"Orpheus was a demigod; the son of Apollo." Connor began explaining as he walked towards the table. Most knew the story or had vague recollections of it, but when Connor spoke people tended to listen. There was a reason he was the unannounced leader; he had this... way with words. "When his wife died he took his harp and played music to open up a tunnel to the underworld. He then went down there, got his wife's spirit, and almost made it back. The condition was that he wasn't supposed to look back at his wife as he lead her up the tunnel. Near the end however, he couldn't resist; he turned, glimpsed the spirit of his wife, and the tunnel collapsed on top of both of them."

There was a silence for a second.

"Well, that ended wonderfully!" Owen commented. "Quite a wholesome bedtime story, innit?".

"Ha-ha." Connor's voice was layered in sarcasm.

'Must be truly sad though;' thought Riley, 'to be so close to getting what you want, and yet...' 

Her thoughts began to tread off to more unpleasant areas, finding its way to Ethan, then to the night...

'Stop it; you shouldn't be living in the past Riley, especially not now...'

"Fine and good," Pratham asked "but what's it gotta do with the mission? It's not like they just chose a name and then stuck it on there, didn't they?"

"Look:" Owen said, his jovial slowly fading; Riley was always fascinated by the fact that despite how childish and free-spirited he appeared, Owen often had the capacity to be one of the most mature people in the room. "Our mission is to save, or more accurately, resurrect humanity by going in pairs and exploring three planets orbiting a neutron star. Once we reach our planets, we conduct studies, and if the planet shows promise, start a colony with the fertilized eggs. In order to do that, we are letting humanity die here on Earth, temporarily," he stood all his fingers on the tabletop, pointing downwards, "then resurrecting it up there," he briefly pointed a finger heavenward, "just like how Orpheus lost his wife and then resurrected her. And, just like Orpheus plunging into the dark underworld, we are plunging into the dark space."

Riley hadn't thought about it like that; Owen's metaphor of plunging into darkness. She liked it, though it did send a small chill down her spine.

"For a dimwit, you're not a bad philosopher." Elise commented. Owen responded by giving a pretentious bow, his humor crawling back.

"Besides," Elise continued "just like Orpheus, we can't look back, else the mission will fail. Humanity depends on it."

There was a small silence.

"Riiiight... but could you just, explain all that, again?" Riley couldn't tell if Pratham was joking or not.

Laughter filled the room. "C'mon Foreign exchange," Owen said glancing at his watch "It's time".

Riley could almost feel the laughter drain from the room. They got up and began shuffling out, Riley feeling quesy; she imagined the others felt the same way too.

Two hours; two hours later Riley was holding her breath, muscles tensed, trying to stay calm. That's how long it took them to suit up, move to the docking area and get seated aboard the Destiny. The main cockpit could seat six people in two columns. Owen sat in the first row; he was their pilot. Pratham sat next to him, Connor and Olivia taking the second row while Riley and Olivia taking the last.

Other than the sounds of Owen chattering into his headset to mission control, and the flipping of various switches, the entire cockpit was silent. Riley assumed the others were feeling the same way she was feeling; maybe this was a bad idea.

"... Mission control to Destiny; check engines." a monotonous voice spoke from the onboard speakers.

"Check engines clear. We are ready to go" Owen replied.

"Ignition in T-minus 10, 9, 8, ..."

Riley's heart began to hammer against her chest so hard she was convinced everyone could hear it through their spacesuits. By all accounts she should be happiest to leave; all of them should be happy to never see humanity, each hand-picked by NASA: no family, no ties, experts in their fields, and completely expendable.

Yet a part of her heart didn't want to go.

"...7, 6, 5, ..."

No! This was it. This is where her destiny lay.

"...4, 3. Rocket detach. 2,..."

The Earth called to her, yes; but the cosmos had already embraced her.

"...1..."

This. This was it.

"LIFT OFF!"